Grenadine

I recently designed a book cover for Yale University Press. It's for my friend Neil Wechsler's play Grenadine. Grenadine won the Edward Albee judged Yale Drama Series Prize for Emerging Playwrights last year (I posted about that here). I'm glad that they decided to use my work. A dachshund with wheels is an important character/element in the play, and as a cover image it helps set the tone of the work. The book is not out yet but it is available for pre-order on the Yale University Press website.

Daily Book Graphics #45 / Atomic Energy

These images are from A Grosset All-Color Guide: Atomic Energy published in 1970. I previously posted illustrations from A Grosset All-Color Guide: Computers at Work here. The book is packed with great illustrations, but what struck me was the number of depictions of nuclear power plants. This is the kind of thing you would want to feature in a book about atomic energy, but it doesn't seem that informative to have so many straight forward architectural illustrations. There are probably five more in addition to what have included here. This must have been right before they started building plants with the huge cooling towers, they are nowhere to be found in the book.

Macro Dead Insects

I have been playing around with shooting dead insects using extension tubes, my macro lens and a flash. I've been impressed with the level of detail. Click on the images below to get the full view.

This some sort of winged ant, probably caught in a spider web on its nuptial flight.

An unknown species of fly.

These are Crane Fly wings I've saved in my collection of insect parts recovered from spider webs (they may or may not be part of an upcoming project).

Daily Book Graphics #44 / Honeycomb Kids

My wife bought this 1976 children's book at a thrift store because she liked the cover. I like it too, but it is a bit strange, I don't think it entirely works. The book is a compilation of stories by different authors and illustrators so the style of the cover is not continued on the interior. Illustrator: Tom Upshur

Daily Book Graphics #43 / Artist and Computer

This book is a fascinating document from the beginning of the computer graphics age. Published in 1975, it profiles a number of artists who worked with computers. Back then doing anything visual on a computer involved long and complicated processes. This book belonged to my father (he wrote his name on the cover), in 1975 he was teaching art history and filmmaking at the University of Wisconsin Whitewater.

Hello to All My New Visitors!

I was excited to learn yesterday that my blog had been named a "Blog of Note" on Blogger. I hope you all keep visiting. I post once or twice a day. Daily Book Graphics is a project where everyday I post some sort of graphic or image from a book that I own. My plan is to do it for a year, today is day 42. I also post the DBG images in this Flickr set. If you are interested in seeing my design and art work, check out my websites MontagueProjects.com and StrayShoppingCart.com. I also highly recommend my book The Stray Shopping Carts of Eastern North America: A Guide to Field Identification.

Daily Book Graphics #42 / Social Structure

I've posted about the amazing illustrations from the International Pictorial Treasury of Knowledge series before. This book is dedicated to explaining The World's Social Structure (that's also the title). I really admire the way they avoid using text. Published 1963.

Daily Book Graphics #41 / Go-Carts!

I think this was a garage sale find. There is something I find compelling about the cover. Published 1966

Daily Book Graphics #40 / Sound

It's worth clicking on the images to enlarge them, these patterns do funny things when reduced in size. ©1965